MR. MARKS AND HIS SUPPORTERS. LTO TICE EDITOR or TIM
SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—I venture to send you the accompanying correspondence, not on merely personal grounds, but because it shows incidentally bow Mr. Marks deliberately misled the House of Commons, and through them the general public.—I am, Sir, &c., HERBERT Bum,. Wellington House, Westgate-on-Sea.
[CoPY.] "Wellington House, Westgate-on-Sea, Nov. 21st, 1907.
To Colonel ROWLA.ND HILL,
Willoughby Lodge, Margate.
Srn,—When on Monday I asked you whether you still persisted in saying I was 'a malicious liar,' it had not occurred to me as possible that you would say you did not recollect the occasion, and that you could not answer unless I showed you where you had said so. I beg now to refer you to your letter to Mr. Marks, which was read by him, presumably with your consent, in the House of Commons on March 12th of this year, in which you plainly do so accuse me, especially in the following passage which I take from the report in the Times of March 13th. You say to Mr. Marks : 'In 1904 we held a Court of inquiry, and you came through the ordeal triumphantly We proceeded to investigate the new charge, and after a prolonged inquiry thoroughly and unanimously satisfied ourselves that it was utterly false.'
Thus you state that, after two separate investigations into the truth of certain charges against Mr. Marks, to which I had, as you knew, set my name, you publicly declare them both to be false. I must remind you of the words we uged in our letter to the Speaker of Nov. 24th, 1906. They were In sub- stance the charge against Mr. Marks's financial integrity, which was proved in Court and found to be true, was that of promoting a company under discreditable circumstances, and, while con- cealing his own interest in it, using his paper, the Financial News, which posed as giving independent advice, to puff his own worth- less promotion. The evidence given in the subsequent cases (the last occurred last month), and which we have specified, shows Mr. Marks, either directly, or through his newspaper, accepting money as a bribe from promoters (more than one of whom has been sentenced to penal servitude) in order to do the same for their promotions.'
I call your attention to the fact that in November, 1906, Mr. Marks told the House of Commons that these accusations were 'false and malicious to the knowledge of those who made them,'—and that your letter was written with the knowledge of, and in support of, that accusation, and was so read in the House of Commons. 'A justification' of the letter addressed to the Speaker was sent to you in March of this year in the form of a pamphlet. You have been repeatedly invited to point out any false statement in that pamphlet and have been unable to do so. You are farther aware that I made myself responsible for that pamphlet by reason of the correspondence that has passed between us on this very point since March last.
You have thus done me a great wrong in declaring that I have made charges which are 'utterly false.' I now call upon you for the last time to take the only step open to an officer and a gentleman, which is to withdraw and apologise for your slander.—
[Copy.] " Wellington House, Westgate-on-Sea, Nov. 26th, 1907.
To Colonel Rowratrn HILL,
Willoughby Lodge, Margate.
have received by your instruction' an acknowledgment of my letter to you on Nov. 21st from Mr. J. Emery, Hon. Secre- tary of the Isle of Thanet Conservative and Constitutional Association. May I point out, however, that my question, whether you still persist in saying I am 'a malicious liar,' was addressed to you as a brother magistrate sitting on the same Bench, and it is therefore from yon, and not from Mr. Emery or anyone else, that I look for a reply. If such reply is not forth- coming by Saturday, Nov. 30th, I shall lay these letters before the Lord Chancellor and send them to the London and local Press.
—Yours truly, H-EEBERT BULL?'
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